Journal of Dental Problems and Solutions

Nelson Wood*
University of Mississippi Medical Center School of Dentistry,
USA
Dates: Received: 04 January, 2016; Accepted: 04
January, 2016; Published: 08 January, 2016
*Corresponding author: Nelson Wood, University of
Mississippi Medical Center School of Dentistry, USA,
E-mail:
www.peertechz.com

Editorial

Oral Health and Body Connection:

Our Responsibilities as Health Care
Professionals

ISSN: 2394-8418

Editorial
Oral health has long been considered to be a separate specialty
that is distinct from whole body health. However, poor oral health
can promote systemic disease, and is found concomitantly with
numerous systemic disease processes. Thus, individuals with poor
oral health may have a predisposition to other disease processes. A
healthy mouth contains hundreds of billions of bacteria, and this
number increases more than ten times if the mouth is not adequately
cleaned. Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory oral condition
currently affecting more than 75 percent of the U.S. adult population.
Many research manuscripts have been written on the harmful
effects of perio-pathogens and their inflammatory mediators that
enter the circulatory system. Periodontitis has been shown to
predispose people to diabetes, insulin resistance, respiratory diseases,
obesity, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome X, rheumatoid arthritis,
and pregnancy complications. Links have also been demonstrated
between periodontitis and cardiovascular diseases that include
atherosclerosis, heart attack, congestive heart failure, and coronary
artery disease. There is also a relationship between periodontitis and
increased fat levels in the blood.
One of the hardest things that we try to do as health care
professionals is to instill in our patients the importance of caring
for their teeth and gums. Patients seem to be much more interested
in not having tooth pain and being able to eat comfortably. Others

are more concerned with cosmetics, and having straight and white
shiny teeth. Vanity for these people is of utmost importance and
their dental and systemic health take a back seat. Patients arrive in
our offices with severely decayed teeth and moderate to and severe
gingivitis and periodontitis. They want their teeth fixed and we try to
oblige because during these hard times we dont want to lose patients.
We are letting our patients dictate their care, and have been justifying
doing restorative work without optimal periodontal health because of
the bottom line, money and fear of losing patients
There has been renewed interest by the scientific community on
the relationship between oral infectious diseases and systemic health.
The public is becoming more aware of this interaction and also how
proper nutrition can modify these relationships in a positive manner.
Nutrition influences the immune response and aids in the integrity
of the oral hard and soft tissues. Thus, nutritional deficiencies may
increase the incidence of periodontitis. Nutrition has also been
found to modify the incidence of several diseases in patients with
periodontitis.
The Journal of Dental Problems and Solutions as an open access
is a forum where clinician and researchers can find the most recent
advances in all areas where problems in dentistry exist and here
we can find their solutions. There needs to be more collaboration
amongst health care professionals, both clinicians and researchers,
and the implementation of translational sciences where researchers
and clinicians have a forum to communicate with each other. The
Journal of Dental Problems and Solutions is where this can occur.

Copyright: 2016 Wood N. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Wood N (2016) Oral Health and Body Connection: Our Responsibilities as Health Care Professionals. J Dent Probl Solut 3(1): 001-01.

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